Hungarian Military Map Symbols in World War II

Higher Level WWII Magyar/Hungarian Armed Forces Commands

The Magyar Királyi Honvédség [Hungarian Royal
Homeland Defense Force] was established pursuant to the military
restrictions of the 4 June 1920 Treaty of Trianon (which became effective on 26
July 1921 and as Hungarian Public Law XXXIII of 1921) -- on 1 May 1922 and
ceased to exist on 8 May 1945. Initially this Hungarian Army consisted of seven mixed
(subsequently: joint) brigades, each with two infantry regiments.

Arabic numerals designated all unit sizes -- except Corps, Battalions and
Platoons, which bore Roman numerals. At the Regimental level a Regiment and its Battalions
were written in a
fraction format, with the Regiment as the numerator and the Battalion as
denominator. Often only the number
of the Regiment and of the Company was written out, as these sufficed to
identify the Battalion (Squadron) also: e.g., 57/7. Company (Cavalry Troop,
Battery or Flight); or 27/5 Company (Cavalry Troop, Battery or Flight).

All abbreviations were written with lower case letters and ended with a period (.).
Number of organic
subunits or of crew-served weapons were italicized in parentheses below the
unit and/or the symbol. All
Cavalry Units were exclusively Horse Cavalry only. The full Personnel Strength of
a combat-ready Infantry Regiment was about 4,300:

Regimental Staff: the Regiment
Commander; the 1st and 2nd Aide-de-Camp Officers; the Chief of the Logistics Office;
Commanders of the Supply
Trains; the Physician-in-Charge and the Regimental Veterinarian; Field
Chaplains and an attached Field Gendarmerie Officer with his Unit.

A Battalion
consisted of the Battalion Staff: Battalion Commander; Battalion Aide-de-Camp Officer; Chief of the
Logistics Office; Commander of the Supply Train; the Battalion Physician and
Commander of the Telephone Platoon, and of

Three Rifle Companies and one Machine Gun Company (later renamed Heavy Weapons
Company).

(The Little Entente alliance of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia came into
existence on 3 June 1921 specifically against Hungary. Yes, the Hungarians did their best to
circumvent Trianon's military restrictions from its very first moment, but as
events proved the results to be tangential, I would like discuss it in detail later).

During the 20 August 1938 Conference of Bled, Yugoslavia -- the Little Entente
officially rescinded Trianon's military restrictions on Hungary. In return, Hungary agreed to not use
armed force to recover any of the Hungarian territories the Treaty of Trianon
annexed to the Little Entente).

Hungarian
mobilization activated the "twinning" of units. This meant that a part of the active duty cadre detached from the Original Regiment ("Mother
Regiment"), and by calling up the reservists, both the original ("Mother") and
her "Twin" Regiments were brought up to full personnel strength. Until 1938 the
numeral of a Twin-Regiment exceeded the Mother-Regiment's numeral by 21,
afterwards by 30. E.g.: after 1938
the twin-regiment of the 22/III. Battalion Infantry Regiment was the 31st
Infantry Regiment, or that of the 22/III. Battalion was the 52/III. Battalion.

Note: the only reason the Hungarian abbreviations
are left with the military symbols is because the abbreviations themselves are
a part of the symbols.

SYMBOLS (Not to scale)

US Army Term

Higher Commands1

High Command

Army

Corps

3rd Division (1st JBDE=Joint Brigade)

4th Independent Brigade & 7th Mountain Brigade

4th Mechanized Division & 1st Mechanized Brigade

2nd Cavalry Division & 3rd Cavalry Brigade

1st Armored Brigade

Air Forces Command2

1st Air Force Brigade (Wing)

River Forces2

River Brigade

1 In illustrating a location, the lower end of the vertical
hairline indicates the exact place of the command.

2 The command's position in the chain of command depends on the number
of troops or large units [operational-level units] subordinated to it. Its
designation also varies accordingly.

The 1st marching column of 3 blocks is a bicycle column, as
indicated by both the symbol and the kp. (kerékpár=bicycle) below.
For the 2nd column of 2 blocks, mkp. (motorkerékpár=Motorcycle) below indicates a Motorcycle, not Bicycle Unit, although the symbol is a bicycle.